Drying Out Our Shells!

Aloha everyone!

We are just about ready to ship our shells to the UC Davis Stable Isotope Facility! At this facility, our shells will undergo 13C and 18O isotope analysis, giving us valuable information that we can use to determine prehistoric precipitation levels and types of vegetation at our study site, Ka'ena Point State Park.

Before we can ship our shells to this facility, we need to prepare them to this facility's standards. First step: drying them out! During the cleaning process, we submerged these shells in water, and we need to make sure they are absolutely, completely dry before turning them to powder.

 

Our shells, intentionally broken during the cleaning process, laid out on a plastic sheet before entering the dehydrator.

We have placed our shells into a dehydrator (thank you Dr. DeCarlo!), which will remove all water content over the next 24 hours. After any residual water is removed, we will pulverize half the shell, weigh it, and ship it to UC Davis.

 

A close-up of our shells, intentionally broken, before entering the dehydrator. Top row: Leptachatina sp.; Second row: Endodonta sp.; Third row: Amastra sp.; Bottom row: Pleuropoma laciniosa

Thank you all for your support! This project will yield information that will be invaluable in determining how prehistoric climate change affected the Hawaiian island of O'ahu.